Duncan’s Ditty of the Day # 7

I was never a huge aficionado of English folk music. There just never seemed the time. But Led Zeppelin on IV included a track featuring the wonderfully-talented English songstress Sandy Denny. Denny was the vocalist for Fairport Convention, so I took a listen to the second and third albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. They were superb by any standard. Fairport also featured guitarist and vocalist Richard Thompson, who later left to record first with his wife and later as a solo artist.

If I had to select just one representative of modern English folk music it would be Thompson. A guitar virtuoso and outstanding songwriter, he has a fine back catalogue going back many years. Perhaps his best-known song is Beeswing.